A woman at a local market shooed me away as I ogled a bowl of live eels. Pardon me, ma’am, not something I see every day. Forgive my curious nature. I’ll fuck off now, thank you. Then again, where did curiosity get that cat? I saw another woman with a headless turtle squeezing blood from the neck into a plastic bottle. Nummy. And then there were the live puppies I heard barking incessantly. (Not a pet market. Nuff said.) Perhaps, they’ve dealt with their share of judgmental Westerners and have had enough. Also, maybe I just look like an asshole.

Disgruntled shoe dude was mildly upsetting, but the rest I laughed off with ease… mostly. I found the quirkiness endearing… for a while. I’d experience this before and assumed it would dissipate…

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Vietnam was our carpe diem. Feet first. Eyes open. Take a chance. Have a fling. Threw our hats in the ring. Lewis Carroll said it best, “In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take, the relationships we were afraid to have, and the decisions we waited too long to make. There comes a time in your life when you realize who matters, who doesn’t, who never did and who always will. So don’t worry about the people in your past, there’s a reason they didn’t make it to your future.”

All did not go as hoped. First off, time wasn’t on our side. I felt pressure (self-induced) to organize the perfect getaway for my Irish lass. No doubt this compromised my laid-back disposition. My pre-reunion Hanoian social exchanges…

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